About

Research interests

I am a physiological ecologist interested in how animals inhabit to their abiotic environment and the consequences of physiological adaptation for distribution, phenology and life history. I combine field observations, empirical data, simulations and theoretical models to understand ecological patterns and infer underlying processes. Previously, I have worked on predicting insect life cycles, distributions and phenologies under realistic climates and the evolution of thermal response in ectotherms.

Current projects

I am currently working as a Postdoctoral Research and Teaching Fellow on a Science Foundation Ireland funded project awarded to Nicholas Payne (18/SIRG/5549). This project aims to use broad scale comparative datasets and in-situ field measurements of ectotherm thermal niches to investigate how temperature generates macroecological patterns. Specifically, I am interested in using models to investigate the mechanisms and evolutionary processes that generate these patterns.

Selected publications

Kong, J. D., A. A. Hoffmann, and M. R. Kearney. in press. Linking life history theory and thermal adaptation explains latitudinal patterns of voltinism. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences. DOI:10.1098/rstb.2018.0547.

Kearney, M. R., J. Deutscher, J. D. Kong, and A. A. Hoffmann. 2018. Summer egg diapause in a matchstick grasshopper synchronises the life cycle and buffers thermal extremes. Integrative Zoology 13:437–449. DOI:10.1111/1749-4877.12314.

Maino, J. L., J. D. Kong, A. A. Hoffmann, M. G. Barton, and M. R. Kearney. 2016. Mechanistic models for predicting insect responses to climate change. Current Opinion in Insect Science 17:81-86. DOI:10.1016/j.cois.2016.07.006.

Kong, J. D., J. K. Axford, A. A. Hoffmann, and M. R. Kearney. 2016. Novel applications of thermocyclers for phenotyping invertebrate thermal responses. Methods in Ecology and Evolution 7:1201-1208. DOI:10.1111/2041-210x.12589.